$30,000 SPER debt? 'No more fines for you!'

Peter Hardwick
Journalist
Peter started in 1976 as apprentice typesetter/comp and has 32 years with The Chronicle in three stints (in between working/holidays in UK/Europe, Brisbane and Melbourne). Entered editorial from comp room in 1996.

WITH a SPER debt of almost $30,000 already, Wilson Frank Ellis was not going to get further fines, a Toowoomba magistrate told him.

The 46-year-old appeared in Toowoomba Magistrates Court yesterday to plead guilty to committing a public nuisance offence which occurred on December 14.

Police had been called to a Water St facility where a drunk Ellis admitted to having punched another man in the face after the victim had called an older person a "dog", the court heard.

At the watch house he was found to have 0.2g of methylamphetamine secreted in his jeans, police prosecutor Rowan Brewster-Webb said.

Ellis pleaded guilty to public nuisance and possessing a dangerous drug.

Duty solicitor Claire Graham told the court the father of five had at the time been homeless, but he was now in stable accommodation with his de-facto wife, who was in court supporting him, and their two-week old child.

Her client also instructed that he was off drugs, Ms Graham said.

Magistrate Viviana Keegan had her clerk check Ellis' SPER (State Penalties Enforcement Register) debt which turned out to be $29,521, prompting Ms Graham to tell the court that she wouldn't be submitting for a fine in the circumstances.

Ms Keegan noted Ellis was into his eighth page of criminal history and said the public nuisance offence was particularly serious because it involved actual violence.

Ms Keegan placed Ellis on nine months probation to include random testing for illicit drugs, with any positive drug test result being a breach of the order.